An education in reporting

There are many, many topics that journalism educators and mentors of young journalists address when it comes to training the next generation of reporters and editors. One of them that has been in the spotlight for several weeks is the debate over government secrecy and the public’s right to know.

Politicians, media figures and others have been energetically slinging opinions and vitriol back and forth since The New York Times, followed by other major newspapers and wire services, wrote about the federal government’s program of monitoring Americans’ foreign financial transactions as part of its war on terror. The Times Union published a version of the story.

The policy never was secret, as many claim. Indeed, it had been publicly posted on the United Nations’ Web site for several years. But the newspapers’ coverage gave it a higher profile.

What do the deans of four prestigious journalism schools think of the controversy? In a joint commentary, they said, in essence, it is part of the journalist’s duty to reveal secrets.

Meanwhile, Rem Reider, editor of the American Journalism Review, weighs in on the topic with a commentary. As he notes:

“What’s involved here is in part the old Nixon administration tactic of trying to score political points by using the press as a piñata. Whether that’s a winner for an administration with anemic poll numbers and a quagmire in Iraq is a good question. But the broader goal is to get the press to back off.”

One Response

Nice try, Mr. Dowd. I see the way you’ve tried to move the goal posts on this one. Everyone is upset that the Times (and Times Union) has exposed and is now trying to justify exposing a specific program that was legal and effective and secretive (just ask Hambali how much he knew about it). But you change the subject and talk about ‘policy’. We’re not talking about the fact that everyone knew we wanted to shut down their financing, we’re talking about this specific program. And as for it not being secret, well, ask Eric Lichtblau about that, he’s the one that kept calling it ‘secret’ in his report and put it in the headline itself. You can’t have your cake and eat it, too, either it was a secret and the Times Union told the terrorists all about it, or it wasn’t a secret and the Times and Lichtblau threw any journalistic integrity they have out the window to call a well-known program ‘secret’ simply to make the administration look bad. The two things are mutually exclusive, you can’t have it both ways on this one, no matter how hard you spin it around the newsroom.

Why do you insist on using biased sources that fill their articles with lies? If you want to make a point, make it, but don’t subject us to sources that are full of lies.

As for the first:

“No sane citizen would wish the media to provide terrorists with information that would be likely to endanger Americans.”

Are your sources implying that Eric Lichtblau isn’t sane?

“Keller has characterized the decision to publish the information as a “close call,””

He also said it wasn’t a secret…so why was it a “close call”? Is it only a “close call” because the majority of the country want to throw him in jail? How can it both be ‘not a secret’ but a “close call”, Mr. Dowd? I know you’re just going to claim that you don’t have to agree with every source you link to, but this is the main thrust of the piece you’re telling us to read, so maybe you can help explain it. After all, the Times Union is making the exact same arguments…you just made the argument yourself.

“In the case of the stories about financial data, the government’s main concern seemed to be that the hitherto cooperative banks might stop cooperating if the Times disclosed the existence of their financial tracking system. So far, that apparently has not happened.”

It’s been all of two weeks, not much of an argument. And governments have indeed called for inquiries into this behavior that could lead to reduced cooperation.

“For instance, there was no justification for columnist Robert D. Novak to have unmasked Valerie Plame as a covert CIA officer.”

Here come the lies. Firstly, all evidence points to Plame as not being a covert CIA officer. Fitzgerald was appointed in response to the cries of the press for an inquiry and in two years found no one that outed any covert CIA officers…all he came up with is a shaky indictment based on the memories of a White House staffer and a reporter. Two years, no crime. This is a lie, Mr. Dowd. Let me put it more simply…the people you want us to read are liars.

“When the press has played such an oversight role, it has often been harshly criticized.”

Probably only because what they’re doing is illegal. Why don’t they just go to Congress and push for oversight or charges, that’s the job of Congress. They still get to have the scoop in reporting that Congress went after the nasty eavesdroppers. Let us know where in the Constitution the press gets to decide what’s legal and what’s not, Mr. Dowd.

“For instance, a few months ago Bush denounced the Times for revealing the National Security Agency’s program of monitoring international telephone calls by Americans without first obtaining warrants, as the law requires. In that case, Bush rebuked the paper for revealing a classified secret. For most observers, however, the most important secret that was revealed was that the president had ignored the statutory process that Congress had established.”

More lies from your lying sources, Mr. Dowd. In 2002 the FISA Court of Review said that FISA couldn’t limit Presidential Constitutional authority in this area. The courts get to say what’s legal, not a bunch of liberal newsmen. Maybe these shining Deans should know the law and court rulings better than ‘most observers’.

“Despite the rhetoric of their fiercest critics, most journalists take secrets seriously.”

But this isn’t a secret, Mr. Dowd, remember?

“Such an action would threaten to tilt the balance between disclosure and secrecy in a direction that would weaken watchdog reporting at a time when it is badly needed.”

Why is it “badly needed” now? Do the authors (liars) cite a single instance of misuse of any of these programs by the Administration? Do you have any examples, Mr. Dowd? I haven’t seen any and I’m beginning to think I follow the news more than you do. So explain why we “badly” need to keep an eye on the President who has proven he can implement programs that protect civil liberties, catch the bad guys, and keep Americans safe all at the same time. Can the press claim as much? They certainly haven’t found anything to the contrary, although they keep making stuff up.

And as for the authors themselves, they’re hardly unbiased, in fact their donation history shows them to be heavily biased in the liberal direction.

“After 9/11, the Bush administration did a superb job of quelling dissent. It vigorously enforced the notion that questioning its anti-terrorism policies was simply unpatriotic behavior.”

No evidence given. I can provide evidence of leading Democrats questioning the patriotism of Republicans, but not the opposite.

“One byproduct was the credulous coverage of the administration’s case for going to war in Iraq.”

How silly for the press to believe every intelligence service in the world and a CIA head that called it a “slam dunk”. Maybe they should have listened closer to CNN who was providing pro-Saddam coverage of Iraq in return for the favor of getting to have a Bagdad bureau?

“Similar outcries followed the earlier disclosures of the National Security Agency’s domestic eavesdropping program and the CIA’s secret prison network.”

And the lying commences. What domestic eavesdropping program would that be? The imaginary one that keeps appearing in the press? How about Dana Priest’s imaginary secret prison network that the Europeans, desperate to find, can find no evidence of? Face it, there’s no secret gulags. Why are you using this liar as a source, Mr. Dowd? Do you think we should ignore their lies and believe the part you want us to read? It doesn’t work that way.

“It’s hardly a secret that the administration is aggressively tracking the terrorists’ money, given the fact that it has loudly trumpeted that it’s doing so.”

Tell that to Eric Lichtblau who ran a story whose entire premise was that the program was ‘secret’ and Hambali, who didn’t seem to know about it, either.

“What’s involved here is in part the old Nixon administration tactic of trying to score political points by using the press as a piñata.”

Boo-hoo, when are you and the rest of the press going to drop the ‘Nixon’ stuff, Mr. Dowd? You and the author know full well that the administration has been exceptionally restrained regarding the press. The imaginary Koran in the toilet, the imaginary secret prisons, the imaginary domestic eavesdropping, the imaginary torture in Cuba, the imaginary NSA databases of every call ever made, the imaginary expose of Abu Ghraib (revealed by the government, not the press), and now, finally, Bush stands up and mildly chastises the press for going too far…and you, the press, go all fetal crying about being censored and being pinatas. Right. Saying you shouldn’t expose terrorist tracking programs to the terrorists isn’t censorship, Mr. Dowd.

“Contrary to the critics’ diatribes, U.S. news organizations handle stories about such classified programs very carefully, and they take requests to withhold information quite seriously.”

And they go ahead and run them when their book is coming out. Even the author proves they’re lying about this: “When I was at the Post in the 1980s, we repeatedly held a story about an eavesdropping operation that had been compromised by the spy Ronald Pelton, because of objections raised by the NSA. The story eventually ran;” Who cares if you take it seriously if you run it anyway, consequences be damned?

“The New York Times held its NSA eavesdropping story for a year — a year — so it could do more reporting given the administration’s red flags.”

And they ran it anyway when the reporter’s book was ready to come out.

“The Washington Post withheld the names of the countries hosting the secret prisons when officials said identifying them could cause problems — and the Post took serious flak for doing so.”

Yeah, right, they withheld the names…names like Boogaboogaland? West ImaginationofDanaPriest? If the Post thought they could damage the administration by giving these ‘countries’ to the Europeans they’d do it in a heartbeat and you know it. Why do you give this person any credence?

So, go ahead and censor my comment, it’ll be on my website for people to see, feel free to stop by and comment, I won’t censor your comments, Mr. Dowd. And don’t offer up any lame ‘just because I linked to them doesn’t mean I agree with all of it’ nonsense, you specifically linked to two articles that agree with your point. The articles you used to back up your constantly shifting arguments for revealing legal, successful programs to terrorists are full of lies…does that mean you couldn’t find any truthful people to back up your claims?